| Here’s a look at today’s Startups briefing. - 🤝 Mimecast acquired Elevate Security to strengthen its product line.
- 🚀 Perplexity AI raises $76.3M at a $520M valuation.
- ⛔ Design startup InVision to shut down by the end of this year.
We have also rounded up the top early-stage funding rounds of this week. Thank you. Karan
p/karan-chafekar | |
| 1 | | Email security firm Mimecast Ltd. acquired enterprise security risk management startup Elevate Security. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition will help Mimecast strengthen its own Awareness Training product line. More: - Elevate Security's platform flags off high-risk users in an enterprise and provides them with the appropriate security awareness training platform.
- Since its founding in 2017, the firm has raised $18.25M in total funding from CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, Foundry Group, Salesforce Ventures, Shasta Ventures, and other investors.
- The company claims that 8% of any company's employees are typically responsible for 80% of the security incidents.
- Mimecast's chief technology and product officer, David Raissipour, said, "People are historically the largest vulnerability in an organization but can also be the strongest line of defense if given the right tools and education. That's our goal with this acquisition and core to our work – manage risk by understanding human behavior in the context of a complex environment and then acting on it."
|     | |
| 2 | | VCs invested $488.4M in early-stage North American startups this week between Jan. 1 and Jan. 5, per Crunchbase data. Biotech startups raked in 58% of the funding this week. AI, biopharma, and healthcare startups nabbed 16%, 13%, and 9% of the financing, respectively. 
Here are the top five largest rounds announced this week: - Biopharmaceutical startup OnCusp Therapeutics bagged $100M in Series A funding. Novo Holdings, OrbiMed, and F-Prime Capital co-led the funding round.
- Human Immunology Biosciences (HI-Bio), a San Francisco, Calif.-based startup developing therapies for immune-related diseases, closed its Series B funding round at $95M. Alpha Wave Global led the round, with additional backing from Viking Global Investors, Arkin Bio Capital, Jeito Capital, and ARCH Venture Partners.
- Biotech startup Moonwalk Biosciences raised $57M in seed and Series A funding from ARCH Venture Partners, GV, Khosla Ventures, Alpha Wave Ventures, Future Ventures, and YK Bioventures.
- Claris Biotherapeutics emerged from stealth with $57M in Series A funding from Novo Holdings, RA Capital, and Mass General Brigham Ventures.
- Cell-based therapy contract manufacturing organization BioCentriq closed its latest Series A round at $29.2M.
| | | |
| 3 | | Design startup InVision will be shutting down by the end of this year, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday. The news follows a tumultuous period for the company, where revenues dropped 50% to $50M in 2022, forcing it to sell its core business line to competitor Miro. More: - InVision struggled to keep up with rival Figma, which increasingly began eating away at its market share.
- The startup had raised $350M from VC firms and touched a peak valuation of $2B in 2018 when it raised a $115M round.
- InVision tried selling off the company but was unsuccessful.
- InVision's platform will remain active until Dec. 31, 2024.
Zoom out: - InVision joins the growing list of venture-backed startups that have shuttered recently, including Convoy, Veev, and OliveAI, which collectively raised about $2.5B in VC funding.
| | | |
| 4 | | AI-powered conversational search engine startup Perplexity AI raised $73.6M at a post-money valuation of $520M. IVP led the funding round, joined by NEA, NVIDIA, Bessemer Venture Partners, Databricks Ventures, and Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos. More: - Former Twitter VP Elad Gil, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch also participated in the round.
- Perplexity's platform uses several generative AI models developed in-house and by third parties.
- Users subscribing to Perpexility's Pro plan, which starts at $20 per month, can choose between AI models offered by Google's Gemini, Mistra 7BI, Anthropic's Claude 2.1, and OpenAI's ChatGPT 4 models.
- The firm has an annual recurring revenue between $5M and $10M.
- The startup has about 10 million active monthly users and has raised more than $100M from investors.
| | | |
| 5 | | Cabana, a startup that offered high-tech camper vans for rent, has shut down operations. The firm has reportedly started the sale process. CEO and founder Scott Kubly blamed the semiconductor shortage, rising inflation, and venture funding slump for the startup's failure. More: - Kubly said, "Ultimately, it was a series of macroeconomic events that felt like a black swan event hitting every nine to 12 months."
- Five months ago, the firm announced plans to expand to San Diego, Bozeman, Sacramento, Portland, Boise, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Denver, and Albuquerque in 2024.
- At its peak, Cabana had 70 camper vans across five regions.
- Cabana had raised $16.5M in total funding to date, including a $10M Series A round led by Craft Ventures and Goldcrest Capital in June 2021, followed by a $3M round led by TechNexus Venture Collaborative in Dec. 2022.
| | | |
| 6 | | Genomics firm Illumina's COO Susan Tousi is set to succeed Victor Velculescu as the CEO of Delfi Diagnostics. Tousi will start the new role next week. She will focus on strengthening Delfi's commercial operations and further advancing its lung cancer screening test technology. More: - Velculescu will remain on Delfi's board of directors after stepping down from the CEO role.
- Tousi's appointment to the top role will help Delfi navigate the competitive landscape of the liquid biopsy market.
- The firm also appointed Dr. Alex Aravanis as its chief technology officer.
Zoom out: - Tousi is the fourth top executive to depart from Illumina since June.
- Illumina's head of Europe, Bas Verhoef, will temporarily step into the COO role vacated by Tousi.
| | | |
| 7 | | Quick Hits: - Need to close more deals, faster? See 6 tips on how Calendly helps sales & marketing teams automate the meeting lifecycle and grow revenue. Read the blog.*
- Touchcast, a startup that helps companies build interactive commerce websites using generative AI, is looking to raise an undisclosed amount through a Series B round. The firm intends to use the proceeds to accelerate software development, build out its global infrastructure, and invest in marketing.
- Conversational AI startup Coqui is shutting down, most likely due to fundraising challenges. The firm had raised a $3.3M funding round last March.
- Aera Therapeutics, a biotech startup launched by Feng Zhang, laid off a quarter of its staff.
- Startup technology company NexGen Power Systems laid off its workers and shut down.
*This is sponsored content. | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | JAN
30 | | Join TruEra for an expert discussion about the impact of the EU AI Act on US and Canadian firms | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
 | Analyst | | Karan Chafekar is a Management Consultant, Business enthusiast, and Licensed Pilot. | | This newsletter was edited by Vibha Chapparike | |
| |
| |
